


living or dying first

by ghostinthelibrary



Series: blood on the marble walls [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Major Character Injury, Multi, Open Relationships, Polyamory, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, Witcher Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinthelibrary/pseuds/ghostinthelibrary
Summary: When the people who hired Yennefer to clear out a nest of ghouls turn on her when the job is done, Jaskier and Geralt have to find her before it’s too late.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: blood on the marble walls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126595
Comments: 29
Kudos: 121





	living or dying first

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the "comfort after a bad day" prompt for Sugar and Spice Bingo, but spun wildly out of my control. While it's the second part of a series, it can be read without reading the first part.
> 
> You can find this fic on Tumblr [here](https://ghostinthelibrarywrites.tumblr.com/post/641333242755186688/living-or-dying-first) if you prefer that format.
> 
> Title is from "you should see me in a crown" by Billie Eilish.

Yennefer shouldn’t be surprised, she thinks as the pitchfork is thrust through her gut. She should have known that something was amiss when the payment for clearing out the nest of ghouls was actually decent. She should have especially been suspicious when the farmer who hired her invited her to stay for dinner. People may be willing to let a witcher sleep in the loft of their barn or to give them a loaf of bread before sending them on their way, but they never want to share a meal with them.

This is Jaskier’s fault, she thinks as the men lift her up and hurl her into the pig pen. She lands with a splatter in the muck. In the year they’ve been lovers, some of his endless optimism about people has started to rub off on her. He sees the best in humanity, even when they’re spitting in his face, calling him a mutant, and chasing him out of town with torches and pitchforks. It’s an alluring viewpoint. She can’t be blamed, she decides, for being seduced by it. For letting herself think, for just a few minutes, that people might not always disappoint her.

Before she loses consciousness, her last thought is of Jaskier and Geralt. They’ll be wondering where she is when she doesn’t meet them in Gors Velen. She wonders how long it will take them to realize that something is wrong. She wonders if they’ll try to find her. Part of her hopes they never find out that her life ended like this.

***

When Jaskier walks into the tavern in Gors Velen, the first thing he sees is Geralt, tragically brooding in the far corner, as always. Jaskier can feel his lips tugging into a fond smile at the very sight of his lover. He doesn’t rush into Geralt’s arms, even though it’s been _months_ since they saw each other and he’s dying to hold the man he loves. But two witchers locked in a passionate embrace would draw attention and while Jaskier doesn’t care about setting the locals’ tongues a-wagging, Geralt is more cautious after Blaviken, unwilling to show a weakness that could be exploited.

People turn to stare as Jaskier crosses the room. He likes to think it’s because he’s fantastically good-looking, but it’s more likely that while the people of Gors Velen are undoubtedly used to the occasional witcher passing through, _two_ witchers together are something to worry about. Jaskier does his best to appear charming and harmless, smiling and nodding at anyone brave enough to meet his eye. When he gets to Geralt’s table, he stands over the other witcher.

“Wolf,” he says.

Geralt cocks an eyebrow at him. “Cat.”

Jaskier sighs. “You haven’t been taking care of that lovely hair of yours, I see.”

“Who the fuck has time for all those oils you gave me?”

“You might as well shave your head. Except no, please don’t, because I would cry.” Jaskier flops down into the chair across from him. “You’re breaking my heart, my love.”

“Hm. Guess I should just drink this ale I got for you, then.”

“Don’t you dare.” Jaskier snatches away the ale. “Yennefer’s not here yet?”

“Didn’t see her horse in the stables.”

“Well, hopefully she’ll be along soon. I’ve missed the two of you.”

This will be the first time they’ve all three been together since they left Kaer Morhen nearly four months ago. Yennefer and Jaskier met up around Belleteyn and he knows that she and Geralt met up at least one time after that. He and Geralt traveled together for about a month over the summer before parting ways. But they work best when it’s the three of them and Jaskier has been looking forward to their reunion for months. In an ideal world, they could travel together at all times, but three witchers working together would never make enough coin to survive.

Geralt looks at him fondly. Under the table, their knees brush together. “I’ve missed you too.”

Jaskier leans towards him. “I have so many plans for the next few days.”

“Hm?”

Jaskier smiles wolfishly. “Well, we have months and months to make up for. Just wait until Yennefer gets here.”

***

Yennefer dreams that she’s fourteen years old again, dragged out of a pigsty and thrown at a pair of heavy booted feet.

“Take her.” Decades later, she can hear the disinterest in her stepfather’s voice, like he was bartering away one of the animals.

“I don’t take payment in little girls.” The other man’s voice wasn’t disinterested. He sounded furious. In the mud, Yennefer trembled at the anger in his voice.

“She’s no use to us here. You might be able to use her as monster bait, at least.”

From somewhere far away, Yennefer’s mother cried out in protest, but her stepfather silenced her with a sharp word.

The witcher was quiet for a moment. “Four marks.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you four marks for her. Use it to feed your other children.”

Yennefer didn’t hear the rest of what was said. She was still kneeling there, wracked with terror and disgust and impotent rage. It wasn’t until the witcher crouched down in front of her that she looked up into his green-yellow eyes.

“I won’t go,” she managed to say with every ounce of defiance she could muster. “I won’t let you take me.”

“You would rather stay here?” His voice was achingly kind. It made her furious.

She didn’t say anything, because this was the last place she wanted to stay. Still, it was better than being turned into monster bait.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She swallowed and said, “Yennefer.”

“Pleased to meet you, Yennefer. I’m Coën.”

“ _Lady witcher!_ ”

Yennefer’s eyes snap open. She’s laying on her back in the pigsty, body still wracked with pain, and the freckled face of the farmer’s oldest daughter is hovering over her, illuminated by the flickering lantern in her hand. Yennefer squints at her and tries to remember the girl’s name.

“Iskra,” she finally says.

The girl has been crying. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “We didn’t know what he was going to do, I swear!”

“Not your fault.” The farmer’s wife and children all smelled terrified at dinner. Yennefer thought they were scared of her, but now she’s wondering if they were more scared of him.

“What can I do?” Iskra asks, sniffling.

“My saddlebags,” Yennefer croaks. “There are bottles in there. Bring me one of the small ones with yellow liquid. Don’t open any of them. Every single one of those would kill you if you so much as breathed in the fumes.”

The girl nods and scrambles away. Yennefer must drift off to sleep again while she’s gone, because the next thing she knows, Iskra is patting her cheek and trying to hand her the bottle of Swallow. With shaking hands, Yennefer unstops the bottle and drinks. Most of it ends up dribbling down her chin and cheeks, but she manages to swallow some of it.

“Will that heal you?” Iskra demands.

“No.” It will slow the bleeding and stop Yennefer’s wounds from getting infected if she does survive the blood loss, but she needs a healer.

The girl’s face falls. “Is there anything else I can do?”

Yennefer tries to focus on the girl’s face, but she can feel herself slipping back into the darkness. “There are two other witchers waiting for me in Gors Velen. They need to know where I am.”

***

The knock on their door in the middle of the night has Geralt out of bed in an instant, already reaching to pull on pants and grab his sword. Jaskier sits up, brain fuzzy from sleep and body still sore and boneless from his and Geralt’s enthusiastic reunion earlier.

“Stay in bed,” Geralt growls and Jaskier rolls his eyes. Honestly, he’s the youngest of his lovers by several decades and has been out on the Path for the least amount of time, but it’s like they forget he’s a witcher too sometimes.

Geralt stands by the door, listening to whoever’s in the hallway, for a long moment. Jaskier scrambles to find his clothes, which were carelessly tossed about the room earlier. When Geralt opens the door, Jaskier hears a young female voice ask, “Are you Geralt of Rivia?”

Geralt is quiet for an instant, assessing the situation. “Yes.”

Jaskier peers around the door to see a freckle-faced girl of no more than sixteen standing in the hallway. When she sees Jaskier, she blanches.

“What can we help you with, my dear?” Jaskier tugs the sword out of Geralt’s hand and sets it aside, because the poor girl looks like she’s about to faint. 

The girl glances over her shoulder, as if to make sure no one is listening in on their conversation. She yanks anxiously at the sleeve of her dress and he notices an ugly bruise encircling her wrist. He can see the places where large fingers dug into her pressure points. “It’s my father, sir.”

“Has something happened to him?” The way her voice cracks and her heartbeat picks up when she says the word ‘father,’ Jaskier guesses that her father is the one who left those bruises on her wrist.

She shakes her head, eyes darting between Jaskier and Geralt.

“What’s your name?” Jaskier asks gently.

“Iskra.”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s happened, Iskra, and we’ll see if we can help?”

The girl licks her lips nervously. “There was a nest of ghouls, sir, down in the family graveyard. He hired a witcher to deal with it. And after she was done—”

“She?” Geralt’s voice comes out a growl.

The girl flinches and she nods.

Jaskier throws a _“let me handle this”_ glance at his lover, even as his hands curl into fists at his side. “What happened?”

The girl looks down at the ground. “My pa and his friends started talking about teaching her a lesson. Said that it’s bad enough that mutants like that exist, but even worse when they’re women.” Her gaze meets Jaskier’s and she grimaces. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“You’re not responsible for the drivel your father spews.” Jaskier tries to keep his voice soothing, even as he can feel panic rising.

“What happened?”

“They attacked her, sir. Stabbed her with a pitchfork and left her in the pigpen. She told me to come find you, that you would help. She’s in real bad shape, but she was alive when I left.”

Jaskier reaches out to place a hand on Geralt’s back. He can feel the muscles bunched in the other witcher’s back. “Where?” Geralt asks.

***

Yennefer is woken by something warm nudging at her face and stinking, hot breath invading her nostrils. Grimacing, she reaches out to push it away and opens her eyes to find herself face to face with a pig. Right now, it just seems curious, but Yennefer knows how quickly that can change. Pigs will eat anything, including each other, if it stays still long enough. Yennefer refuses to die devoured by pigs, not after surviving ghouls and wyverns and leshen and fucking _Stregobor._

Now, if only she could move.

“Fledgling.”

Yennefer groans.

“Come on, Yenna. You need to get up.”

And Yennefer knows that it’s a hallucination. She knows that she’s suffering from blood loss and probably a fever, lying in the mud in the middle of Velen. Last time she saw Coën, she was in Kaer Morhen. They spent the winter together for the first time since Kaer Seren fell. But she knows that Coën tends to stay farther south. He wouldn’t be in Velen.

But when she opens her eyes, it’s like she can see him. Green-yellow eyes, pockmarked cheeks, bushy beard, warm smile. He looks down at her. “Come on, you’re not going to make me the last Griffin, are you?”

“Was bound to happen sometime,” she gasps. Or, she thinks she gasps. She doesn’t know if she actually has enough air in her lungs to form coherent speech.

“No, Yenna. You’re going to outlive me. You promised.” She can feel the ghost of his hand cupping her cheek.

“You’re not dead, are you? I’m not talking to your ghost?”

“No, not a ghost. Jaskier and Geralt are waiting for you.”

The last time she saw Jaskier was Belleteyn. He let a little girl put a flower crown on his head and he convinced Yennefer to dance, even though the sight of two witchers dancing together made the townspeople stop to gawk. She can still picture him grinning at her from under his flower crown, oblivious to the people staring. The last time she saw Geralt was about a month after that, when they met up in a little town in Sodden. They took a contract for a fiend together, then spent two days holed up in an inn.

She was supposed to see them today. She wanted to make it to them so badly.

“Yenna,” the imaginary Coën standing above her says. “If you don’t move, you’re going to die.”

Above her, there’s an oink. A second pig has joined the first.

With a shaking hand, she casts Axii. “Go away,” she manages to croak.

The pigs back off.

Exhausted, Yennefer sinks back into the muck.

“Good girl,” imaginary Coën says.

Yennefer lets out a hoarse laugh. “It won’t hold long. And it doesn’t matter. I’m going to bleed out here anyway.”

Imaginary Coën says nothing and when Yennefer opens her eyes, he’s gone.

“Coën!” she tries to call, but all that comes out is a wheeze.

When she slips into unconsciousness, she’s alone.

***

Rain stings Geralt’s face as Roach gallops out of Gors Velen. It’s a damp, misty night, the kind of night where people aren’t traveling unless they're desperate. Jaskier and Geralt are desperate.

Geralt can’t get the images out of his mind. Yennefer’s eyes going wide as someone shoved a pitchfork through her gut. Yennefer thrown into a pigsty like so much trash. Yennefer bleeding. Yennefer alone. He knows there’s a good chance that they’ll be too late. Gut wounds are ugly things and Geralt knows many witchers who have been felled by them.

But if nothing else, Yennefer deserves a proper burial. She deserves to have her medallion returned to Coën.

She deserves to be avenged.

It’s the longest ride of Geralt’s life. With every passing moment, he knows that their chances of finding the woman they love alive dwindle. Behind him, he can hear Jaskier’s muttered curses and pleas to the universe. Geralt stays silent. He can’t think of anything beyond getting to Yennefer. No amount of pleas will help with that.

When the ramshackle farmhouse comes into view, Geralt and Jaskier dismount their horses, tying Roach and Pegasus to trees. Without saying a word, they head towards the farm. Geralt keeps a hand on the knife on his belt, keeping an eye on the farmhouse as they pass it. This late at night, the house is dark and silent. The farmer and his family are sleeping soundly after what they did to the witcher who helped them.

When he hears the slow, steady thump of a witcher’s heartbeat, he lets out a long breath of relief.

Yennefer is lying right where the girl said she would be, in the middle of the pigsty. There’s muck splattered on her skin and armor and her swords are nowhere to be seen. Blood leeches out of a wound in her gut, soaking the ground around her. She’s unconscious, head lolling to the side. She’s so still that if Geralt couldn’t hear her heartbeat, he would think she was already gone.

“Yenn,” Jaskier says in a broken whisper.

Geralt hops over the fence, shooing the curious pigs away, and lifts up Yennefer’s shirt so he can see the wound in her stomach. There are three deep punctures left by the pitchfork.

“She’s going to need a healer,” he says.

Jaskier kneels down next to him to brush Yennefer’s hair out of her face. “You should get her back to town.”

Geralt looks up at Jaskier, frowning. “What about you?”

Jaskier’s eyes meet his. Geralt has never seen that expression on his lover’s face. “I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Jask—”

“You saw the bruises on Iskra’s wrists, Geralt. Yennefer isn’t the first person he’s hurt, but she will be the last.”

Cat witchers do things differently than Wolves, Geralt knows. He forgets that sometimes. Of the three of them, Jaskier has always seemed the softest, the most gentle. It’s easy to overlook the fact that he was raised by assassins.

“Get her somewhere safe, Geralt,” Jaskier says tightly. “I don’t expect you to help me with this. I won’t ask that of you. But don’t try to stop me.”

“I won’t.” Geralt bends to lift Yennefer in his arms. She’s so fucking light. He forgets how much smaller she is than him when she’s awake.

Jaskier leans over to brush a kiss over Yennefer’s brow. “I’ll be right behind you, dear heart. I promise.”

***

The farmer begs for his life.

It’s the man’s son who lets Jaskier into the house and points him to the chair in the corner where his father is dozing. The lad has a bruise under his eye. Before the man dies, he gives Jaskier the names of his three friends who helped him attack Yennefer. Jaskier tracks all three of them down.

He normally takes no pleasure in killing humans. Unlike some of his brothers and sisters in the Cat School, he never seeks out contracts for men. But he also knows that some humans are as monstrous as any wyvern or striga. There are people who make the world worse by existing in it, who are a danger to their families and their neighbors, who would turn on a witcher who helped them without a shred of remorse. Jaskier feels no guilt over ending their lives.

The butcher doesn’t see him coming.

The blacksmith tries to fight, but is quickly overpowered.

The farrier flees town. Jaskier doesn’t manage to track him down until it’s nearly dawn.

When Jaskier returns to the farm to get Pegasus, Yennefer’s horse, and her gear, his steel sword is slick with blood for the first time in years.

***

The first time Yennefer regains consciousness, she’s on horseback, head lolling against an armored chest. There’s a strong hand planted on her back, keeping her in the saddle, and she’s surrounded by the familiar smells of chamomile, leather, and horse.

_Geralt._

“Stay with me, Yenn.” It’s Geralt’s voice in her ear. “Stay with me.”

And she tries, but the darkness claims her.

The second time, she wakes up cradled against Geralt’s chest in a bridal carry and a woman’s voice is saying, “Don’t know if there’s anything I can do for her. Never treated one of your kind before.”

“At least try.” Geralt’s voice is raw with desperation. “She has a gut wound. She’ll die without help.”

“Won’t be cheap. Especially not with that stench she’s carrying.”

“Whatever the price, it’s yours.”

Yennefer wants to tell Geralt that he shouldn’t make stupid promises like that, not when she’s already as good as dead, but she’s already slipping back into sweet oblivion.

The third time she wakes, she’s warm and dry. Sunlight streams through the window and from outside, she can hear the sounds of the city stirring to life. There are two heartbeats in the room— one, a human heartbeat that’s just a bit too fast, the second a witcher slow heartbeat.

“Yenn.”

Yennefer turns her head to find Geralt sitting in the chair next to her bed, watching her with a worried crease in his forehead. When her eyes meet his, he lets out a long, slow exhale of relief.

“Good, you’re awake.” That’s the healer, a middle aged woman who has the faint, sour scent of anxiety about her. Even as she talks to Yennefer, she’s eyeing Geralt warily. “I stitched you up, gave you something to ward away any infection, and bandaged your wounds. You have no fever, so you’ll just need to change your bandages regularly, apply the salve I gave your… friend here, and rest for the next few days.”

It’s abundantly clear that the woman wants them out as soon as Yennefer gets her feet under her. After Geralt hands over an absurd amount of coin and the healer leaves the room, Yennefer says, “I had a warmer welcome from the people who stabbed me.”

Geralt grimaces. “She tried to make me leave. I wouldn’t. Didn’t want you to wake up alone, not after what happened.”

She can feel a fond smile tugging at her lips. “Making friends, I see.”

“Hm, I’m not Jaskier. No interest in making friends.”

Only then does Yennefer notice who _isn’t_ here. “Where is Jaskier?”

“He had some loose ends to tie up.”

“Loose ends?”

“The people who did this.”

Yennefer’s eyes go wide. “Jaskier’s going after them?”

“He insisted,” Geralt says.

Sometimes, Yennefer forgets that Jaskier is every bit the witcher that she and Geralt are. He’s the youngest of them, the most naive, the most exuberant, the most alive. But she’s seen him in battle, knows that he’s as quick with his blade as she is with his tongue. Still, the thought of him facing down the men who managed to take her by surprise chills her to the bone. She can’t stand the thought of him ending up facedown in a pigsty, bleeding and helpless.

“Come on,” Geralt says softly. “Let’s get you back to the inn.”

“And then you should go after him.”

“He wouldn’t want me to leave you.”

She shoots him an acid look. “I can take care of myself, Wolf.”

Her words are belied by the fact that when she tries to stand, she nearly falls over and he has to scoop her up into his arms. She allows it, because it’s actually rather nice.

She doesn’t remember much about the trip back to the inn. Her thoughts are still fuzzy from blood loss and exhaustion, so she’s happy to lean against Geralt and let her mind wander. By the time they reach the inn, she’s nearly asleep again. No sooner has Geralt gotten her settled into bed than the door swings open— Geralt and Yennefer both unthinkingly reach for weapons— and Jaskier is standing there.

Jaskier smells of other people’s blood and fear. He clearly made an attempt to wipe the blood from his face and hands, but he missed a little bit at his hairline. There’s something hard and cold in his expression that Yennefer hasn’t seen in him before and she finds herself glancing down at her griffin medallion to make sure that isn’t vibrating to warn her that this is some kind of impostor. But her medallion remains still and when she looks up, Jaskier is smiling that open, infectious smile that she knows so well.

“Yenn,” he says, in a soft, broken voice and crawls into bed next to her to kiss her. She still smells a little bit like a pigsty— someone attempted to clean her off, but didn’t do an overly thorough job of it— and the inside of her mouth tastes terrible, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“You’re okay,” he says into her hair and Yennefer closes her eyes and lets herself lean against him.

“The two of you are making such a fuss over a little scratch.” Yennefer brushes her lips over the top of his head.

“Scratch?” Jaskier’s indignant squawk is almost worth the whole miserable affair.

The mattress creaks behind Yennefer as Geralt slides into bed on her other side. One of his hands slides down to protectively cup her bandaged belly. His lips brush over the nape of her neck and she leans back against him.

“Are they dead?” she asks.

Jaskier nods. “All four of them. I left some coin for the farmer’s family. It seems they were as much his victims as you were.”

Yennefer remembers his daughter’s terrified face. “Good.”

“None of those assholes will hurt anyone again.” Jaskier’s voice goes hard with barely suppressed fury.

“It was my fault anyway.” Yennefer can feel herself drifting again, lulled by the slow thrum of her lovers’ heartbeats and the familiar warmth of them bracketing her.

“How?” Jaskier asks incredulously.

“I stayed for dinner when they asked.” Yennefer tries to shrug, then winces at the movement. “I let myself be lulled into a false sense of security. It was stupid.”

“You thought they were being kind. That’s not stupid.”

“Witchers don’t get kindness,” is the last thing she murmurs before she falls back asleep.

***

Yennefer wakes to hushed voices and the slosh of water filling the tub. Geralt is still at her back, his hand resting on her hip and his breath tickling the back of her neck. Jaskier’s voice is a cheerful chatter. “No, really, as hot as you can get it, my dear. No need to worry about us boiling our skin off. Witchers’ skin is tough as old shoe leather.”

Geralt snorts in Yennefer’s ear.

“Yes, yes, perfect. Thank you kindly. You’re a gem.”

There’s the sound of a woman giggling, then footsteps retreating.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” Yennefer asks, eyes still closed. “You really will flirt with anything that moves.”

“That wasn’t flirting, Yennefer, darling. That was called being friendly.” She hears the creak of footsteps approaching, then feels lips brushing over her forehead. “You should know by now that there’s only one woman for me.”

“So that angry husband who chased us out of Hagge last spring—”

“An isolated incident.”

“If only.” Yennefer opens her eyes to gaze into Jaskier’s.

His lips quirk. “Should we talk about the angry husband who chased us out of Rinde?”

“An isolated incident.”

He snorts. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got stabbed by a pitchfork last night.”

“Two days ago, love. You’ve been asleep since yesterday.”

Well, that explains why she feels so groggy. Fuck. She starts to sit up, then groans as her body protests.

“None of that,” Jaskier says as Geralt puts a hand on her back to steady her. “We have this room paid for the next two nights. You are going to take it easy.”

Yennefer scowls at him silently as the blushing young woman returns with two steaming buckets of water and adds them to the tub. Jaskier flirts some more, tips her generously, then sees her out.

“Now, my dear, let’s get you clean.” He comes striding over to the bed. “Because, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but you smell like you got dumped in a pigsty two days ago.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growls, but Yennefer only flashes a smile that promises vengeance later, once she can sit up of her own volition.

Jaskier scoops her up off the bed, carrying her across the room with infuriating ease. He’s utterly gentle as he peels off the shirt of Geralt’s that she’s wearing— not even leering at her breasts, which betrays how concerned he is— and deposits her in the tub. The water is so hot, it’s on the edge of being painful, and it feels divine. Yennefer can’t completely suppress the little moan she lets out.

She takes a moment to examine her injuries. The wounds are healing quite nicely; the healer may have been unpleasant, but she certainly knew what she was doing. Her belly is still tender to the touch, as she imagines it will be for a few days, but she sees no signs of burgeoning infection. Done making sure that all her guts are where they’re supposed to be, she looks up and finds both Jaskier and Geralt watching her with concerned eyes.

“Will you two stop watching me like you think I’m going to vanish?” Yennefer huffs with fond exasperation. “I’m fine.”

“You scared us.” Jaskier is smiling, but his eyes are sad.

Yennefer tries not to think of how hopeless she felt lying in the mud, how certain that this would be it for her. It’s an unspoken understanding between the three of them that one day, they will most likely lose each other. No witcher has ever died in their bed, all three of them learned during training. It’s a dangerous job and the mortality rate is high. There will be no happy ending for the three of them, no growing old and gray together in the cottage by the sea that Jaskier likes to talk about.

But she isn’t ready to lose either of them and she’s not ready for them to lose her.

“I’m fine,” she says again, more gently this time, because she knows how she would feel if she came across Jaskier or Geralt unconscious and bleeding in a pigsty.

Jaskier circles behind her and kneels by the side of the tub. “Can I wash your hair?”

Yennefer closes her eyes and tips her head back in assent. He loves playing with her and Geralt’s hair. Geralt doesn’t stand for it, beyond occasionally letting Jaskier wash it, but Yennefer enjoys it. It’s surprisingly nice to feel fingers that aren’t her own threading through her hair and massaging her scalp. She ducks under the water and lets Jaskier get to work, scrubbing copious amounts of soap through her hair.

“I’m so glad that one of you takes good care of your hair,” he says with a happy sigh. “Do what you can to sway Geralt, will you?”

“Can’t be swayed,” Geralt says from where he’s still sitting on the bed, watching them.

“I’m just trying to help your hair see its full potential, Geralt!”

“There’s no point. Can’t kill a wyvern with hair.”

“Then why keep it so long, if you refuse to—”

“Do you want me to cut it?”

“Don’t you _dare_!”

Yennefer closes her eyes and lets the sounds of her lovers’ familiar bickering wash over her. This is an argument they’ve had before and will have again. It will never have a resolution; Geralt will always let his hair be a mess and Jaskier will never stop buying him expensive products in hopes of taming it. The thought is comforting and Yennefer feels a smile curling her lips.

She doesn’t notice that Geralt is approaching until his hand brushes over her ankle. She opens her eyes and finds him kneeling at the opposite end of the tub from Jaskier, watching her.

“Can I?” He lays a hand on her calf. “Might help with the pain.”

Yennefer hasn’t said a word about the ache that’s suffusing her whole body after her night spent lying in the cold damp of the pigsty, but she never seems to have to mention that kind of thing to Geralt always seems to pick up on that kind of thing, always attuned to what the other two need. She nods and Geralt gently begins to rub her feet and legs, his fingers strong and sure as they work at the abused muscles. It’s bliss and Yennefer closes her eyes again and lets herself enjoy Jaskier’s hands in her hair and Geralt’s on her skin.

“Yesterday, you said that witchers don’t get kindness,” Jaskier murmurs in her ear. “We just wanted to show you that you’re wrong.”

Yennefer snorts, not bothering to open her eyes. “I don’t need humanity’s kindness, Jaskier. Just their coin.”

“That’s not true. Think about Iskra. She was terrified of her father and of us, and she still rode for miles in the dark because she knew you would die if she didn’t get you help. Think of the innkeeper here, who’s feeding us and giving us this bath for free because a witcher killed the griffin that killed her father thirty years ago. You deserve kindness as much as anyone, Yennefer.”

Yennefer turns her head to brush a kiss across his knuckle. It tastes like soap, but she doesn’t mind. “You’re such a romantic, Cat.”

“You bring out the romance in me.”

“Oh, don’t blame me. I’m sure you were this incorrigible long before I came along.”

“You’re right. Maybe it was Geralt.”

“You’ve only known me for two days longer than you’ve known Yenn,” Geralt grumbles, the fond smile curling his lips belying the exasperation in his tone. “You can’t blame me either.”

Jaskier sighs. “How did I get stuck with the two least romantic people on the Continent?”

“You decided to fuck witchers,” Yennefer says.

“Well, you’re not wrong.” He presses a kiss to her shoulder.”But my point stands, Yenn. You deserve kindness. You deserve nice things. Don’t let one asshole with a pitchfork let you forget that.”

“Jaskier, believe it or not, this isn’t my first time ending up on the business end of a pitchfork. You don’t need to make such a fuss. You already killed the men who did this. That’s enough.”

“I did.” There’s a vicious satisfaction in Jaskier’s voice that she’s never heard from him. “And I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve never been one to take contracts on humans, but I don’t consider those bastards human.”

“Wasn’t a contract,” Geralt adds. “There’s no code against stabbing people who need to be stabbed.”

The Griffins would have frowned at that, but Coën isn’t around to be disapproving, so Yennefer doesn’t argue. After all, it’s not like she wouldn’t do the same thing for Geralt and Jaskier. Stregobor was technically a man, and she killed him without hesitation when he tried to carve Geralt apart. And like Jaskier, she would do it again.

Jaskier leans forward to kiss her, his lips gentle against hers. Yennefer feels a shiver of interest low in her gut.

Geralt makes a disapproving noise. “You’re still injured, Yenn.”

Yennefer and Jaskier break apart. “You’re no fun,” Jaskier says, sounding gratifyingly breathless.

Geralt’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m plenty fun, when there are no gut wounds involved.”

Yennefer and Jaskier exchange eye rolls, which Geralt pretends not to notice.

By the time the water has gone cold, Yennefer is inexplicably tired again, even after sleeping for over a day. Geralt and Jaskier bundle her back into bed, laying down on either side of her, their bodies bracketing hers in. She has her head on Geralt’s shoulder and Jaskier’s chest pressed against her back. It’s so comfortable that she can feel her eyes drooping already.

“Thank you,” she murmurs into Geralt’s shoulder.

He kisses her on the top of the head. “We have each other’s back.”

She closes her eyes and nestles closer, letting sleep claim her once again. It’s not the reunion any of them were hoping for, she knows. But they’re alive and they’re all together. And for today, that’s enough.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


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